Thursday pantry at New Hope Baptist, two blocks east.
Been doing it for years.’
Every report Isaiah had read, every database scraped, every dead-end interview and mailed inquiry suddenly collapsed under the weight of that simple fact.
She had not vanished into mystery.
She had remained where hunger still lived.
He thanked Barnes and crossed two streets so quickly he almost forgot to lock his car.
New Hope Baptist occupied a modest brick building with a small side entrance and a hand-painted garden in raised boxes out front.
Through the basement-level windows he could see movement, folding tables, stacked bread crates, volunteers in hairnets.
He went down the steps with his pulse thudding in his throat.
Inside, the room smelled like sliced fruit, coffee, and industrial cleaner.
Children clustered near one wall with paper bags and winter coats.
Volunteers worked assembly-line style under fluorescent lights.
And there, at the center table, was a woman in a denim shirt with her sleeves rolled to the elbows, cutting sandwiches into triangles with efficient, practiced hands.
